


Time Fractures

by shreylock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: About Redbear and "that day", How and why Sherlock made himself, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock's Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 17:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10141343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shreylock/pseuds/shreylock
Summary: You’re so lucky, Sherlock, my love, for loving you as we both do is and will always be a privilege.





	

The world was full of details.  
Sherlock got stuck sometimes, while walking hand in hand with his mother, embed in between a paper candy and an abandoned ring, trying to find connections, and words to place in the right places, so that he could formulate those ideas he spent days building, so that he could do it as a musician would write his music (papers filled with notes, formalities to bring in other’s minds the songs he already knew in his own).  
He had so many questions. _Too many_ he rectified, observing his brother’s face change expression, _his eyes say too many.  
_ Sherlock didn’t quite understand why. Mycroft seemed to interpret his questions marks as manifestations of his ignorance, but weren’t those glowing signs of his desire to gather knowledge? The walls around him constantly mislaid pieces of the outside universe, and specks of dust rained on his shoulders in the middle of the night, burying his body with future memories.  
He collected them as gifts from a god he didn’t believe in, because he liked the idea of believing, he was amazed by prayers, by those blind beliefs that led human beings to put themselves in elusive upper hands. Seemed like stupidity at first, but Sherlock had long thought about it, and at the age of eight years old, he secretly came to a conclusion: believing while knowing you can’t know for sure is a kind of bravery.

[One day, billions of silences later, Sherlock would step into a church pretending to despise gods and amens and useless weddings, and his pupils would dance between guesses (sat down, forced smiles painted on their mouths) until they’d catch someone who knows having faith is building a castle with dry sand on the top of a cloud, and still puts hands together and looks up and says “thank you” and means it, and Sherlock would think “I wish I had your hope”, and he would touch his left wrist and feel childhood dust under his fingers.]

He’d never tell anyone, of course. Had to look coherent under his brother judgment.  
Hidden under his bed, skinny and pale, he used to wonder a lot about Mycroft. He felt this fundamental kind of love towards him, made out of assumptions and false realities, and he didn’t know how to handle it.  
He hated talking with Mycroft (pieces of himself slipping away moment by moment, only his mental progress remaining true to itself). He became like a potter who changes the way his arms move to settle down for a vision someone else created, to battle a peer, while his art disappears, singing each word quieter, until it is heard no more, not by anyone.  
Sherlock didn’t want to get there.  
“There’s a boy —he used to say, shyly— in my house, and I live with him, and he lives with me, and his parents are my parents, and he should care about me and I should care about him”.  
Those letters tasted different every time they came out of his lips.  
And it wasn’t only about Mycroft.  
When he was very little he desperately wanted to feel loved, by anyone. It was more of a tacit wish at the time, a corner of almost-nothingness in his chaotic room, but Sherlock couldn’t deny its existence.  
His first day of school was absolutely but silently catastrophic.  
He had met other children before and it had always been uneasy. He didn’t understand why they just felt free to walk over him and start playing with his toys. He wouldn’t get annoyed or angry, but he’d stop, curious and amazed, and take a few steps back, wondering.  
The outside world gradually became an oversea country he didn’t know how to get into.  
Mycroft’s “too many questions” turned into his classmates’ “too many answers for questions we didn’t ask”, and Sherlock barely stood between those two extremes, unsure and pathetic.  
He slowly became quieter, confused and lost, and when his teacher once screamed at him “If your friends can cooperate with each other, why can’t you?”, he just stood there, frightened, no words to reply, his long and complicated sentences, hated by so many, lost into one of his fears’ pocket.  
Took a long time to find a friend in his class, and didn’t last long.  
She was short and full of smiles. Sherlock liked her because she was never rude to him; she was warm and soft, and he relied on her as one sits near a fireplace when outside is snowing, feeling exhausted when he could not reach her, immersed in a chaos he didn’t know how to handle.  
He would always remember that time he was forced to sit in a strangers’ table (or so it looked like, when he perceived his senses rebelling as he realized he was supposed to draw on a blank paper tablecloth with a bunch of children he had just met).  
_They look insignificant_ , Sherlock instantly thought.  
_No,_ he corrected himself, _I am insignificant if I think they are meaningless. They can’t be.  
_ He missed his friend's smile, and didn’t like to notice anything else, but he nodded instead of shaking his head, in the endeavor of acting by logic consciousness, and it kind of hurt.  
_I want to see them,_ he expressed, lightly, maybe easily, with a childish kind of hope, and instead of drawing, he found himself picking up details.  
He was so little and oddly funny, eyes fixed and focused on his surroundings, palms on his cheek, fingers lazily tapping on his skin, mouth curving in smiles when brain proved his talent, and the teacher failed to observe him.

[“Such a simple fact”, he realized, out loud this time, years later, as an old man sat on a couch of flowers, “how many people failed to observe me.”  
The other old man ran his hands through his husbands’ hair. “The problem is, Sherlock, you shouldn’t have believed any of them.”]

The teacher failed to observe his coping mechanism or the sadness in his irritation, and couldn’t distinguish Sherlock’s attempts to swim from his struggles not to sink, and she got mad because she didn’t want to waste time with him and said: “Oh Jesus not again, I’m gonna call you your friend, okay?”, and she did, and the friend came, and she smiled so vividly, and Sherlock forgot what he was doing and thought “joy brights up people”.  
A few months later his class lined up in a hallway, as always when the school bell was about to ring, and he moved near his friend, as he did each time when dispersed. She was tired that morning; he had time to practice his abilities, and he looked at her and knew she was tired. Still, he didn’t act on it, for his presence never made a huge difference.  
“Sher, don’t be always with me” she burst out instead, vaguely pointing at another group of kids “look at Bianca! Sometimes she’s with me sometimes she’s with them”. Sherlock didn’t understand how to get the hand of that sentence. He wanted to solve it, like a puzzle, but his new notions didn’t seem to work out, not with this. He said “I’m sorry”, and stayed still. She made a face, a crossed one, and he slowly turned around. He felt irrationally guilty and buried deeper in his imaginary castles.  
As years got by, he became more and more clever, he changed classes in the middle of the year because he was “on a different level compared to his peers”, but as his mental abilities grew, his perception of the world didn’t change or light up, it was still blurry, vague.  
He learned what a mind palace was, he started to play the violin (his mother taught him) and he was talented. He wanted to understand, and on some fields he was brilliant, everyone knew how brilliant he was, but he was quite blind in others. He slowly stopped talking in order not draw attention towards himself, but he so became an asocial freak. He changed plan and started to speak as much as he could, not letting any detail be left behind, trapped in his mouth, and still, he failed to fit in, gaining the reputation of a robot, rude and cold, becoming the sociopath he was always afraid to impersonate. He sometimes made efforts to have friends, to laugh and tell jokes, but it didn’t feel right. He couldn’t tell if it was more painful to fall through or succeed, and cataloging his feelings like he cataloged everything else turned out to be irrelevant: his schemes were never useful.

[After both of Sherlock’s parents died (they passed out in January, same year, and one night Sherlock, curled up against John, told him _please let me die first,_ to which John answered, _no, you died once already,_ and Sherlock laughed through hundreds of almost-tears and said _fair enough, why don’t we die together like them?_ ) they went to their house and dug through memories. They found themselves sitting in a room full of boxes, and they opened them one by one, Sherlock breathing deeply at times, relying on John’s chest. Late in the evening, John found a piece of paper. It was a list of feelings, and a few examples from some of the times Sherlock felt them. He wrote it when he was twelve years old, and he had left a few blank lines for each of them, to collect further data. John took a pencil from the pavement, and asked Sherlock “Why don’t we fill it together? You tell me what to add and I’ll write it for you _”,_ and Sherlock nodded and so they did.  
_ Joy: a person I esteem remembered my name. I play the violin: the sounds make me feel better, I don’t disappoint my abilities. Assumptions turn out to be right. Someone smile at me and it’s genuine and not required. Impressing Mycroft. Not feeling the need to impress him because I discovered an interesting fact, and my knowledge can change the fact through actions.  
_ _Rare, best kind of joy: I don’t wonder if I’m watching myself breathing instead of being alive.  
_ _— Mrs. Hudson takes care of us. John cries, moved, while I play the violin. “Thank you, you made a difference”. I talk to my brother and it feels fine. John walks towards me in a wedding suit and this time is our own.  
_ _ Frustration: A boy dies in a pool and there’s something wrong. I go and try to help. Further proof: shoes missing, there’s something wrong. Nobody sees but me, I’m not allowed to talk.  
_ _Interesting people make themselves noticeable. I want to talk with them, I’m not sure I know how I look like, part of me feels repealed by my wish of getting to know them, I don’t know which one of those voices I should listen to. I think about it again, deeply. I still don’t know.  
_ _— Solving a case, I am almost there, but still somehow halfway. Something (someone) gets destroyed and I can’t help it, not anymore. John won’t stop teasing me when he knows I can’t kiss his lips, or generally any spot of his skin, while we are examining a dead body.  
_ _ Sadness: I wanted to be a pirate when I was younger. I don’t want to anymore. Better explained: I don’t believe I can dare to imagine such a thing. I rewrote that Samara story in which the merchant can’t escape Death. In my version, he dares to dream (he becomes a pirate) and live (he gets married to the ship’s commander) and he’s still clever and at ease with himself. I wasn’t able to write a single word of that story without having to fight not to cry. I failed those fights at times.  
_ _My parents try their best, I don’t want to upset them, they fail to see what it’s happening to me.  
_ _— Thinking about all the years we wasted. Acknowledging the minds of those who will never understand how much they are losing by not allowing themselves to love.  
_ _ Guilt: constantly. Because I do harm, because I do harm and do not care, because I don’t do harm and wish I did. Not feeling grateful towards my parents when they do their best. Being late for everything while people keep telling me I’m early. Wanting to be like my brother, hating my brother.  
_ _— Not telling the truth. Jumping at Bart’s. Hurting the loved ones. Hurting myself and not even noticing. Best kind of guilt: not wanting to get up in the morning and accomplish my tasks, because I wish I could just keep kissing John instead.  
_ _ Happiness: my parents want to get me a dog next year. I allowed myself to look at a boy once. He stared at me, smiling, and I didn’t look away. Not sure it was happiness, but it felt like appreciating myself, too.  
_ _—Loving: John, myself, John, John. Marrying him, being proud of being his husband, being proud of myself and our lives, breathing in his neck, feeling his hand through my hair, feeling worthy of love, his love. Crying on his chest, hugging him in the middle of the night, making love with him, having a home with him, dancing with him, saving lives with him, being sure I’m alive (and not watching myself breathing) because he’s here and I love him and love doesn’t rest on dead things._

They stared at the piece of paper.  
The last paragraph had been a funny one to say out loud.  
Sherlock wished his younger self could read it.]

He often wondered how his future would look like. Who he would be with, if he would like it. At days he considered it as an island of dreams, distant and unreal, but sometimes Sherlock was so afraid of it. How many shields would he need to wear in ten years?  
During those stressful and confusing times, Mycroft was more and more distant. He looked weighted by too many responsibilities, and one night, when their parents got out for their anniversary (so sentimental, those two), he had to make Sherlock dinner —he would usually handle it by himself, but had gotten a fever that week and barely found the strength to get out of bed.  
It was a little bit unusual, too normal and too difficult at the same time. Sherlock studied every movement Mycroft’s body drew, trying to catch up with every sentence he wanted to say but didn’t. His brother opened a shelf and almost reached out to Sherlock’s mug, but then his eyes briefly rested on various packs of biscuits and cereals, and his hand slowed down and casually picked up a glass. He put it on the table in front of Sherlock and then asked with a sigh: “What do you want for dinner?”.  
Sherlock stared at him, focused. “You tried to be nice.”  
“I beg your pardon?” (an eyebrow was raised, slightly; Sherlock felt satisfied already, his head was spinning slower)  
“You wanted to show me some kind of affection by proving me you remember which one of those mugs is my favorite. It’s a small detail, almost silly, you were hoping I wouldn’t even fully notice it. But then you realized you don’t spend enough time with me to remember what I usually eat with tea and milk. By the way, would I want tea or milk? —(Mycroft now looked vaguely impressed)— If you had known you could have tried to narrow it down and still put a bunch of items on the table, but well, you didn’t, so you gave up, partially because you didn’t want to show your inaccuracy in the improbable case I would notice your intent, and partially because you felt discouraged.”  
Mycroft smiled. He actually, genuinely smiled. It was a small smile, to be fair, and it instantly disappeared, but the length of its life couldn’t possibly erase its existence.  
“You are observant, brother of mine, but you missed a detail.”  
“What?” Sherlock asked, suddenly confused, “what did I miss?”  
“The glass I gave you. There’s a small crack on the bottom left corner, your thumb is playing with it even now, but you don’t seem to realize it.”  
Sherlock looked down at his right hand and couldn't help but open his mouth a little.  
“I didn’t give up completely after all,” Mycroft added, before turning his back to Sherlock and opening the fridge.  
“But,” Sherlock said, trying to win this weird deduction game he didn’t know they were allowed to play until that moment, “if you know I’m not aware of my… glass preferences, you never intended for me to get any of this. You didn’t want to show off, it was purely kindness.”  
There was a moment of silence before Mycroft, exhausted, too tired to play pretend, hidden by the fridge’s door, said: “Yes, it was.”  
That night Sherlock repeated his magic formula, in his mind this time, not even feeling able to whisper it.  
“There’s a boy in my house,” he began, “and I live with him, and he lives with me, and his parents are my parents, and he cares about me and-“  
Sherlock almost started crying, alone in his room, wrapped in bed sheets, breathing deeply and feeling stupid, because he couldn’t believe there was a boy in his house, and Sherlock lived with him and he lived with Sherlock, and his parents were Sherlock’s parents, and he cared about Sherlock and Sherlock cared about him. He couldn’t believe he wasn’t able to wrap his head around it, and felt sick because it sounded like a novelty, and it shouldn’t have, should it?  
From that day on, when they wanted to communicate but didn’t know how to, they would play with their brains, like they did in a quiet night of December, eating together in silence and uneasiness, admiring silently.  
It wasn’t enough just yet, but it was something.

[Sherlock threw Mycroft a small, fancy box.  
“Let’s play deductions.”  
Mycroft managed to catch it. It looked at it for half a second.  
“I think you’re going to be very happy, Sherlock. And these rings are expensive.” He was almost laughing. A weird scene to witness.  
Sherlock smiled. “I’ll let you win this time.”]

Something changed when Sherlock turned 13. A month before his parents would finally get him a dog, a boy sat near him in his science class. He looked at Sherlock with curiosity and told him he was called Victor Trevor and had just changed school.  
“I’m Sherlock,” He replied, an awkward smile on his face, not really used to social interactions.  
Victor remained silent for a moment, and then said, with the same tone he would have used to ask _what hour is it?_ (not childishly, but simply, like it was not that much of a big deal): “Do you know that someone drew an enormous penis on the back of your shirt?”  
Sherlock nodded, doing his best to look unsympathetic. “In fact, I knew it yesterday. I wore one of my brother’s shirts for the occasion”  
Victor let his arms rest on his desk and put his chin on top of them. “Oh, that’s nice.”  
“What? My knowing yesterday what would happen today or my brother’s cloth abruptly ruined by a permanent marker?”  
Victor seemed confused, but Sherlock detected a smile on his face he wasn’t expecting to see when they both turned towards each other. “Your not caring. Also, the way you talk.”  
Sherlock grinned before being able to stop himself. “I guess I can accept that as an answer.”  
“They didn’t draw it in the right way, though” Victor added.  
“I’m sorry?”  
“It’s so not anatomically correct, the proportions are absolutely unnatural.”  
“I hope it’s not a self-portrait then.”  
Victor raised an eyebrow, looking straight into Sherlock’s eyes. “Oh no, I definitely hope it is.”  
They giggled loudly, together and all of the sudden, and Sherlock, for a fraction of a second, began to feel the wall he so carefully built up between himself and the outside world slowly disappearing.  
Victor spent the whole hour drawing penises on a piece of paper to show Sherlock “the right proportions”, and while in the beginning Sherlock had tried to argue that he actually had a penis and knew what it was supposed to look like, at some point he got into the argument and started talking about diseases and syndromes that could alter a penis’ “shape”, until another classmate heard their whispers and stared at them for about thirty seconds before Victor noticed and said “It’s for science”, and both him and Sherlock burst out laughing in the guy’s face.  
When Sherlock got up from the chair that day, Victor followed him without asking or bothering to explain, and they walked side by side in the hallway, chatting, like everyone else was, as it was normal for Sherlock Holmes to have a friend and enjoy his presence, and when Sherlock stopped in the middle of a sentence and planted his feet in the pavement, absently and irrevocably, Victor’s face was all but puzzled. He observed him for a while and then said: “Count from one to ten.”  
Sherlock, a colorblind child who just learned what the color blue looked like, managed to say one word: why.  
Victor rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. Seemed something inappropriate to say.”  
Sherlock slowly focused his senses on the air in front of his nose. “Okay, so why would you say that?”  
“Because it was inappropriate.”  
Sherlock offered Victor an interrogative look he’d reserve for him and him only for a long time.  
“I find inappropriate things funny.” He explained.  
“So you were trying to be funny?”  
“No” (Sherlock couldn’t help but smile a little) “well, you see, now I am!” he added, ridiculously pointing at Sherlock’s expression.  
As they started walking again, both with brighter backs, joyful in their lack of knowledge, their minds like broken wood sticks, endorsing each other without a motive, all in a desperate effort to taste reality, their smile disappeared slowly and immersed into their memories.  
Sherlock would treasure that kind of light for a long time.

[Sally briefly looked towards Sherlock, close to being disgusted, offended by his cynicism, abhorring the way he used to dissect a person’s life and classify as useless every inch of love he held in his chest. Sally briefly looked at him and asked: “Where you ever young?”  
Sherlock stared at her furiously and didn’t answer.]

They met every day as it was a blessed mistake. It flew silently, the love they shared, and Sherlock barely recognize it for what it was while it passed by, like wind on his skin, for he would still wake up at nights thinking he was not equipped to be anybody’s friend, because he had not the right to, and how did he dare to believe himself worthy of care.  
His breaths spun around cold uncertainties each time he felt afraid of losing what he earned, and it was exhausting, it was torture, feeling guilty for the joy he learned to hold in his chest, but he still wouldn’t miss it, he still wouldn’t miss that affection. It was a much warmer motivator than pain, and Sherlock needed a motivation, and his hands had been too cold for too long.  
One morning, sat in a coffee bar, they were talking about pirates and childhood dreams, and Sherlock (Sherlock, who could open up his heart without noticing, not caring, trusting compliments and jokes and red cheeks, his ideas damning his actions with all the strength they were capable of) said: “What I wanted to be is only a memory”. Victor smiled and replied “Only? You can build castles upon memories”, and so Sherlock did. Unexpectedly, when his parents got him a dog, he named him Redbear. Mycroft stared at him without a word, and Sherlock wished Victor was there to smile at him, to take his brother’s place, and decided in that moment he wouldn’t ever mention Victor to his family. Of course, Mycroft would still find out, but not from Sherlock’s lips, he wouldn’t get the impression he deserved to know. Victor was something Sherlock needed to keep for himself.  
He needed time not to be overwhelmed by the way his skin was changing in colors under his own eyes, he needed time not to faint and cry when he wasn’t able to stand still.  
Sherlock spent his life (unknowingly) craving for an affection he had just found, and he was daring to believe he wouldn’t lose it: he needed time for that, too.  
_Daring._ (he again whispered to himself while caressing his dog) _Not easy._

[He was about to leave Molly’s house. One hour and he’d be on a plain, begging to dismantle everything Moriarty built. His body hurt, his brain was spinning, and he found himself not wanting to get up from that comfortable, ordinary, old couch. Molly came in the living room and asked him if he needed anything else, and stopped in the middle of the sentence, desperate in between silences.  
Sherlock closed his eyes and pretended he was not there.  
Smells, noises, textiles he could fill under his clothes, it all pointed out to the opposite deduction he had wished he could fool himself into believing, it all denied him to dare to imagine the walls of Baker Street around his shoulders.  
He wanted John to come through that door. He wanted him to make dinner, and have small talks with him, and laugh, and tell jokes, and touch his left shoulder by mistake, and say his name, casually, as it was normal, over and over again.  
“Molly?”  
Behind closed eyelids, he imagined Molly’s face turning worried towards his, as looking straight into his hidden pain was a difficult task to accomplish.  
“Yes, Sherlock?”  
A hesitation.  
He needed to say his name out loud to someone who knew him, one last time. He needed to, no matter what it cost, and what side of this distant and cold character he made of himself he was gonna destroy.  
“Do you think I can dare to believe John will still be here when I come back?”  
Molly smiled as Sherlock slowly opened his eyes. “I think you have to.”  
Sherlock’s attention focused on her breath (regular, solid, proof of her being alive) and envied all her bruises.  
“Why?”, he asked.  
“If you can convince yourself he will be waiting for you, maybe you won’t die.”  
Sherlock didn’t say a word, for he knew she was right.  
“And if you do come back” she added, sad and melancholic, “maybe he won’t die either.”]

It had been almost a year since the birth of their friendship when they first openly talked about themselves. Sherlock had shared pieces of his heart (if that was the name to define his intimate thoughts’ processes) before, wrapped up in casual conversations, and they had gotten to know each other like brothers who grow up together and get used to words and ways to live, but none of them had yet found the courage to speak what they so easily deduced.  
They were laying down on grass, the sun shining on their skin, and Sherlock was complaining about the silliness of that situation, of their body lazily resting and their mind stupidly guessing clouds’ shapes.  
Victor was obviously not listening, so Sherlock stopped talking. They spent a few moments in silence and then Victor said: “I don’t like dancing.”  
Sherlock closed his eyes. “Well, I do.”  
“Why did you close your eyes?”  
“Enjoying the sun.”  
“So it’s enjoyable?”  
“Yes, that’s the logical consequence.”  
“I know, that was a rhetorical question.”  
Sherlock moved slightly, cupping his cold neck with his hands. “You were paying attention to my words after all.”  
“That’s a rhetorical answer, too.”  
“That wasn’t an answer.”  
Victor yawned. “You are boring.”  
So many people told him that, but yet how different it sounded in his friend’s voice.  
The realization exploded in his mind senseless, and he would have done anything to be real, not to disappear, to leave a mark on Victor’s memories, to make him realize who he was, to gift him with his secrets, to able to know, when alone and bewildered, that he had a friend, and that friend had observed him, and could still hold him in his head, should Sherlock leave the earth and never come back, like in his wildest dream, abducted by stupid, childish, clever aliens.  
“Victor,” (he said, freely, all of the sudden, forcing himself not to think about the possible implications of that sentence, saying words like they didn't mean anything) “I think I’m gay.”  
“That’s nice.”  
Victor didn’t even blink. He kept looking at the sky and clouds shone in the blindness of the universe. Sherlock felt grateful.  
After a few moments of silence, Victor asked, puzzled: “Are you in love with me?”  
Anxiety fell from Sherlock’s shoulders, and he smiled. “I wondered that, too. But no, I’m not in love with you.”  
“How do you know?”  
He didn’t, not for sure. He could only guess.  
What Sherlock felt for Victor was warm and comfortable and vast, but it didn’t burn, that kind of love didn’t know flames or thunders, it meant resting in a home he didn’t know he ever built.  
When in a lesson they sat in distant chairs, Sherlock didn’t crave his contact, there was no need for them to be close, realizing Victor was there was just enough, and when he thought about him during the day, it was natural, reassuring, the lack of him in his life wasn't painful, for he could feel him, alive by his side, anytime he had enough confidence to try. He might feel lost while facing his fears, while thinking he could lose him, while questioning their friendship, as he fully understood he was still daring, but that was Sherlock’s fault, that was Sherlock feeling as fragile as a piece of paper, crumbling, against all the laws of physic, by itself and without a reason.  
He took a breath and spoke his truth.  
“I don’t think that’s what romantic love looks like.”  
Victor was thinking so hard Sherlock thought he could feel his brain working. But he wasn’t doing it out of stress or pain, he was just trying to understand.  
“How does it look like then?” he asked.  
“I don’t know.”

[Sherlock was standing against the door.  
It was cold outside. November sang out his leaves, and the rain, sporadic and heavy, consumed the air as it had to try to get its revenge, as all those no one who caused its sorrow had suddenly appeared as ghosts, hidden in the atmosphere.  
John had messaged him terrified. Something had happened with Mary. The great detective’s deductions were quietly fighting behind a closed door in his mind, overawed by transparent flames, burning and freezing fortresses.  
Sherlock was holding the phone in his quivering hands.  
_She’s not pregnant._ (he read in his mind, as slow as he could, at the highest speed he had ever read anything -no more than that he could do-) _Sherlock, I know you are cleverer than me, and this belief of yours saved our lives many times, but please, just this time, believe me. Stay where you are and wait for me. I can’t explain right now. We need to breathe, okay? Let us breathe for a while, we’ll deal with everything when we have time. I’m coming home, if that’s okay, tonight at least. I’m in a cab.  
_ Sherlock just wanted to see him. He wanted to feel John’s life under his skin, he wanted to press fingers on the highlights of his past, to fill with laughter all the things he did not say, to feed with tears the roses he failed to shield. Wishes locked horns with reality, but nevertheless, they trembled behind his ears, loud and delusional.  
_Stay where you are and wait for me.  
_ He had waited for him at every corner, painfully fearing to sense him fading away, sailing in other planets he didn’t know the name of, he had lingered for years outside locked rooms, watching John’s light and dreaming the strength of his will.  
He had waited for him since the moment he met him, and when he finally arrived, getting out of the cab in a hurry, they both stopped, in a desperate silence.  
John looked at Sherlock and slightly tilted his head to the left, as though he was observing a piece of art, his heart quietly crying in between the shades of his eyes, tired and magnificent, proud of all the love he held.  
Sherlock was shaking so evidently, and he didn’t want to die, he would never want to die, not when they could be alive together.  
John looked down at the pavement for a moment.  
“What’s all that?” he asked, awkwardly, pointing with his face at Sherlock’s.  
After all those time, they were still falling in love with each other, every day a little bit more.  
“How does it look like, John?”]

“I hope you’ll find out.”  
Sherlock nodded. He wasn’t so sure about it, he couldn’t tell if really wanted to, if it’d be a nightmare or a corner of heaven. Probably both.  
“Victor,” he said then, “you are not in love with me either, are you?”  
“No. And I don’t think I would like it.”  
“What, being in love with me?”  
Victor waited a moment, pensive as always. “I wouldn’t like being in a romantic relationship in general.”  
Sherlock rolled to his side and looked at him. “Shut up. I’m the sociopath here.”  
“I wonder why” Victor began, with a smile on his face, “ people think one’s sanity is based upon his romantic choices. You wouldn’t be more or less of a sociopath if you didn’t want to have a relationship.”  
“I wish I could believe you,” Sherlock said, and there was no need to add anything, or specify what he was trying to express (how his infallible mind understood, and his unstable emotions changed and destroyed and raged in his guts). Nobody had to say: case closed. Victor stared at his expression and acted like that sentence never found life from Sherlock’s lips.  
“Actually, I’m lucky I’m not looking for anything,” he said.  
“Why?” ( _Thank you_ )  
“Because if I had told you differently you would have stalked every single girl and boy in our school to analyze their behavior and interests and level of cleverness or whatever that thing is called, and thus you’d have proceeded to elect the best one, the best option for me to get together with, and- please Sherlock, stop laughing, this shit is true.”  
(Sherlock was still laughing.) “Did you just say shit?”  
“Another fucking rhetorical question.” (Victor was laughing with him, for as much as he tried not to, in order to be funnier, in order for Sherlock to laugh more than Victor could.)  
“No, seriously, Victor, you are swearing. That’s not normal.”  
“It's for fucking experiments.”  
“Why?”  
“Fucking fun.”  
“Can you please stop saying fucking? Doesn’t sound right with your voice.”  
“The fuck not, I rarely find a way to piss you off.”  
Sherlock was amazed by their ability to pretend happiness. They both were, and they both kept laughing.

Six months later Sherlock was taking Redbear out, and Victor was strolling on his side, strangely silent.  
They sat on a bench and played with the dog without saying a word. Sherlock petted him gently, thinking he would associate Victor with Redbear for all his life.  
“You must know you can say no.”  
Sherlock, whose face was being generally licked by his dog, briefly turned towards Victor, his thoughts abruptly interrupted. “Why, are you gonna ask me a question?”  
Victor shook his head. “No. But you have to know that. You can say no and it doesn’t change who you are.”  
Leaves fell and wooden dust flew through their unexplained sorrows, as perceptions of each other's stories grew blurrier and deeper, and far too many sentences began with a whisper and never ended, were magically understood in between breaths.  
"Sometimes positive answers are given for granted."  
Victor began to sing, irrationally, giving Sherlock the clear impression that he had heard him but had no voice to reply.  
They remained still. Two friends and a dog in a park, quietly composing music in their heads.  
"Sherlock", Victor said, once again, "I feel particularly sad today."  
Redbeard was falling asleep on his lap, and Sherlock felt warm and mournful, and he needed to wash his face with cold rain, to erase future’s revenge and defeats, once and for all, in order to be safe in the house he built, worrying no more about nutshells he still had to stumble upon.  
He needed to ask a simple question and not be ashamed of his voice.  
“Why?”  
Victor looked exhausted but resolute: a ghost dressed in worrier’s clothes.  
“I don’t want to be a backstory”, he began, as though he was reciting a poem he spent years writing, “I don’t want to be the things that happened to me. People who’ll look at me and feel pity or rage and think “that thing made him”, and I don’t want that, I want to be the one who made me. Whatever happens, no matter how bad it gets, I want to create who I am. Even if I decide to be a mask, I want to paint it all by myself. And maybe that’s not accurate, maybe experiences change identities at times, but I still don’t care, I just want choices. I crave choices and I have none, so let me have this, at least this. I want choices.”  
Something had happened. Sherlock could read it everywhere in his body and in all his voices, and when he said “You are leaving, aren’t you?” and Victor started crying, quietly, so quietly it was difficult to recognize tears, running against his cheeks, he couldn’t help but do the same, and they mirrored each other in that dejected evening, asking themselves why couldn’t it be easier, trying not to realize they were about to lose what held them to the ground.  
“Victor, am I a friend of yours?”  
It was honesty in its purest form, it was enormous and delicate, and it burned, and it hurt their ears.  
“Of course you are.”  
“Why-“  
(Sherlock started sobbing.)  
(Victor took his hand and put it on Redbear’s fur.)  
( _Love,_ he said, _allow yourself_ )  
( _I can’t,_ Sherlock answered, but he patted Redbear nevertheless.)  
( _I’m sorry. Are you going to try?)  
_ _(_ Sherlock nodded.)  
“Why can’t I believe it then?”  
“One does not believe the things that he doesn’t accept.”  
Sherlock had never wept in front of someone else, ever. He had imagined it so many times, he had wanted Victor to realize how desperate he was, he had wanted to be held and loved, and to be told “You are my brother, I’m proud to be your brother”, but he still couldn’t kill, not even then, that part of him that blamed itself for existing, and made guilt the ruler of his heart and mind.  
Why couldn’t it just stop. Why didn’t his brilliant brain manage to condemn its nonsense and take it to the ground and punch it and punch it and punch it, until it gave up shouting.  
“I can’t put myself out there. I used to watch my muscles move behind a glass, but now I’m outside and I can’t. I can’t be here without you, Victor, I don’t know how, I don’t know how it works, I can’t choose sides or right sentences or jokes, I am lost. And I hate everything I’m saying, I hate it, it doesn’t feel like me. I hate all of this.”  
Victor rested his fingers on Sherlock’s shoulders.  
“It can’t be me, Sherlock”, he said, “it has to be you.”  
It was a disconnected reply, and yet no other answer would have been more appropriate.  
“Then nothing is ever gonna happen.”  
“No. That’s not true.”  
Sherlock closed his eyes and said the single most ridiculous thing he could possibly think of. And he damned himself for wanting to pronounce those words so bad.  
“Can’t I just fall in love and he falls in love with me?”  
(He tried to slap his own face, because he wanted to be hurt, he wanted punishment, but Victor stopped him, firmly gripping his wrist. He waited with him for what felt like hours, until Sherlock nodded and put his hand back on Redbear.  
Victor ignored those moments like they never happened. Sherlock listened to the nothingness and, once again, understood.)  
( _Don’t be ashamed, please._ )  
“You can’t place your heart in someone else’s chest, you can’t leave it anywhere but your insides. If you’re lucky enough, you will find someone that makes you want to live, but it will be a choice, Sherlock. It’s still going to be about you. If you want them to come into your house, you will need to open the doors.”  
“Can’t they open it by themselves?”  
“No, Sherlock. You are locked from the inside. Everyone is.”  
“I wish I knew how to properly let you in.”  
Victor smiled. “Maybe I didn’t see your rooms, maybe you didn’t see mines, but that’s okay. We still met. That’s enough for now.”  
They would never find the right way to say _thank you,_ but they both knew it. That was enough, too.  
“Why are you moving again?”  
“My family is a mess.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
It started raining all of the sudden and Redbear got up.  
They followed him, walking for hours under the storm’s rage, not aiming anywhere, in complete silence, doing their best not to reach Sherlock’s house. When they couldn’t avoid it anymore, Victor started singing in a language Sherlock didn’t understand, and it was faint and nostalgic, and he didn’t stop, not even while they hugged, tightly, not even when they parted and watched each other fading away with eyes they did not have.  
Sherlock would become obsessed with that song, and one day, many years later, he would find out what it was about.  
_Maybe you don’t know that_ (it said) _,_  
_but this is love, too._

[ _From John, To Sherlock.  
_ _When I observed you properly for the first time I saw a fortress. I saw your eyes standing as soldiers against your living soul, not letting anyone get close. I saw your tongue speaking the excellence of your mind and I saw your fingers being ashamed of it.  
_ _I didn’t know what it would be like, to get in, to open the book, to read your stories and live in your pages. I didn’t expect you to let me touch you.  
_ _But you did let me. (I remembered the first time my lips brushed against your skin. Oh, Sherlock. There are tears in my eyes as I write these words. Never had I been gifted with such an enormous miracle.)  
_ _Your love for me, Sherlock, was the only thing that kept me alive at times, but believe me when I tell you that watching you loving yourself was (is) the greatest pleasure of my life.  
_ _I wake up every morning and I love you, and I feel blessed because it is such a privilege.  
_ _You’re so lucky, Sherlock, my love, for loving you as we both do, is and will always be a privilege._ ]

When Victor left, Sherlock’s world collapsed in a methodical misery.  
Gravity started working again, and if he ever found a way to forget guilt, he failed to fly again above his injuries, and hid in a cave, showing his brain and his brain only to the outside world. But Sherlock had to be honest with his memories. Now that he knew the difference, it was hell. It was uncomfortable and chaotic, it felt wrong and unnecessary, and yet it seemed the only path worth following.  
He lost passion, he lost the joy of learning, he stopped trying to deduce his brother, he passively accepted everything his parents told him, he stopped collecting the familiar dust that laid down on his body every night, he just left it there, slowly disappearing and withering like an arid flower.  
His dog was the last corner of forgotten happiness he allowed himself to acknowledge, and when he got sick Sherlock thought he could delete entire universes with his rage.  
He watched his diseases proceeding and taking away pieces of him, and it was so painful that it looked impossible. Sherlock’s parents decided to put it down, and he almost didn’t even blink when they told him about it, he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye, not to him too, especially because Victor wasn’t dead but it felt like he was.  
He obligated himself to stay in his room while Redbear died, and he cried and he cried and he screamed in the empty house, and he punched his legs with his wrists and he pulled his hair and he wanted it to stop. It was just a dog, it was just a goddamn dog, why did it matter.  
Why did he have to be so involved with everything he touched.  
When Mycroft got into the door that day, he found Sherlock curled up against a wall.  
“I don’t want this”, he said, instantly, not even bothering to look at him.  
Mycroft stayed still. He could have hugged him, he could have helped him getting up, he could have told him _come on Sherlock, you are gonna get through this,_ he could have shown him love, in any way, for any amount of time, but Mycroft, filled with his own pain, stayed still instead, and declared, with a grave voice: “You can end it. You are clever, brother of mine, find a way not to care.”  
Sherlock believed him (and Sherlock never did, and Sherlock always tried, and everyone brought his comedy as a real life story), and from that moment on, he began to transform himself, building his armor piece by piece, so slowly to make it look like a natural process, inevitable metamorphosis.  
He tried with his whole being not to think about Victor, not to think about the idea of him, his honest voice reminding him that it was not supposed to be like that, holding hope besides his back, as a children would do, with the gait of a wise warlock, vague and blurry, standing behind the enormous, fogged glass Sherlock placed before his body so many ages in the past.  
It required effort. Too much effort.  
Sherlock was tired, but didn’t give up creating his mask.

[“Do you still blame him?”  
It was raining on their heads. Sherlock could distinctly hear the drops falling on Baker Street’s roof, producing a regular music, blending with the song of John’s breath.  
And there it was, their masterpiece: naked body pressed against each other, hands resting on cheeks and shoulders, heads on white pillows, eyes filled with understanding (but never, never pity), and curly hair beautifully messed up by millions of touches.  
They had needed so much time to paint their happiness. Sherlock was so proud of his choices.  
“No. I don’t think I’m entitled to. He did nothing but advising me what he had been doing for all his life.”  
“I wasn’t talking about Mycroft. I mean, have you ever blamed Victor for moving away?”  
It was so weird, to hear his name in someone else’s voice, in John’s voice. It felt familiar.  
“Why should I have blamed him? It wasn’t his fault.”  
“But you do not blame with your mind, Sherlock, you blame with the heart.”  
Nobody ever asked him that. Not even himself. The truth was: he didn’t know how to answer that.  
“I have no idea.”  
“Why didn’t you try to call him?”  
“I don’t think I ever… I didn’t…”  
Tears were rising in Sherlock’s eyes. He tried to hold them back and John stopped him, kissing lightly his eyelids.  
“Cry, Sherlock. Please, let yourself cry. Do not blame your fears.”  
And so Sherlock did, and so he sobbed for hours against John’s chest.  
At some point, when the dawn was raising, John whispered in his ear: “Caring, no matter how much it hurts, is always an advantage.”  
Sherlock fell asleep in an ocean of emotions.  
He felt safe.]

It happened slowly, but at some point, whoever got to know him, started considering him a freak, an insolent bastard, the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant, and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet, a man dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of happy.  
He painted himself as such, trying to focus on his mind, on mental processes, speaking out loud his brilliant deductions, ignoring every single “piss off” he heard.  
When he discovered he could actually be able to help the police, he felt, for the first time in ages, excited. He knew his character well enough to know that chasing serial killers and solving murders would fit, would seem appropriate, and that what was left of his old self could keep dancing on the sound of all the lives he would save. He would never pay attention to that background music, he would (and never could) be the hero, but the existence of those notes was fundamental.  
There was a limit to the number of lies he could tell himself.  
Sometimes he couldn’t fall asleep, buried in an ocean of complicated tricks. He kept looking at the door, expecting someone to get in, judging him for his weaknesses, revealing his corrupted shivers to the animals that were waiting, in the dark -in his chest- to find a spot of vulnerability into his skin, to kill him from the insides, and so he would get up and lay down against the door, tapping his ears with his hands until he couldn’t hear anything, not anymore, until he was completely sure there was no one else to hurt, or to fool, or to cry upon.  
It was still hard, to play pretend all along. Some people considered him a decent human being despite all his efforts, some people still suspected there was more to see.  
Sherlock breathed their smiles in secret, ashamed for his peculiar need, and waited.  
He waited for a novelty he didn’t know the name of, he waited to escape his monotonous pain, but when news finally arrived, he cursed the night skies that kept him walking, he cursed his existence and everything he could rest his eyes on, he cursed music and laughs and the false happiness painted on everyone’s faces.  
The newspaper had been under his nose all day. Someone (Mycroft, of course it was Mycroft) had hidden it in his backpack. He had noticed it since early morning, but didn't want to give him the satisfaction to instantly read it, so he opened it when he got out of school.  
It was a local newspaper, and one of the last pages was highlighted.  
(He would think about that moment for a long time, he would wonder about the way he moved his fingers, how he titled his head, he would wonder about the girl that walked past him, laughing against the shoulder of who appeared to be her girlfriend. He would wonder about the fragility of human life, the number of movements that took to the network to lead those two girls in front of him, in that exact moment: joy in the face of tremendous pain. But it didn’t matter, did it? What was the point of searching answers for useless questions? What case was he trying to solve with that impossible knowledge he could never hope to acquire?)  
His eyes rested on the page, thin and opaque.  
Languages, what a funny thing. Weird symbols combined in a certain way, and worlds get destroyed.  
The article was about a boy, an eighteen years old boy, who got killed while driving a small, old car. It appeared to be an accident. The officers weren't sure. Was it suicide? The circumstances were unclear, there was no way to know.  
What ignorant assholes, of course there was a way to know.  
At first, Sherlock thought Mycroft wanted him to investigate about it, and, be damned the whole universe, he smiled, because he wanted to help.  
_The name of the victim,_ he then read, in between lines, _is Victor Trevor, and he-  
_ Sherlock was invested by such an incalculable amount of pain that he remained completely still for a moment. If he moved again, it was because he realized he had stopped breathing.  
He coughed, hard, and his whole body collapsed into itself, obligating him to get up, to let go of everything he was holding, and run. He ran as a wolves’ pack was chasing him behind his back, he ran because he couldn’t think, he would have died if he had let himself realize what happened.  
It was violent, running without an explanation, without words and tears, it was evil, it was punishment, it was unbearable.  
He allowed himself to stop running in an obscure alley, (and in his mind castle’s thousands of years later) when his body slipped against a dirty wall, and his thoughts started screaming. He inhaled deeply and stretched his arm with his fingers, in complete silence.  
How do you accept vague departures? How do you know it’s not your fault if they left, how can you be sure you couldn’t have done more and you couldn’t have saved them, how can you be sure it wasn’t your fault? And if your brain knows it, how do you convince your emotions, why do you have those emotions in the first place, what do you need them for?  
And why did they have to die? Why them, of all people?  
They were so much. They were so many treasures all in one mind, they were roses and flowers and stars and dirty tissues, and they were so many details, and you barely met them, and you loved the idea of them more than you love them as a person, but still, you got to glimpse their weightless figure and it was heavy, it was a suitcase full of books and stories and words, and how come it could just disappear? In the end, why were you so obvious, Sherlock? Why was your pain so huge, why couldn’t you destroy it? Why couldn’t you get what you deserved, why couldn’t someone see how wrong you had been and just kill you, with bare hands, without doubting the legitimately of that act? Why were you alive? What was the point? Why was your whole life, Sherlock, so messy? And again, you enormous bastard, you did it all by yourself, and that’s your fault, and had you been normal, it wouldn’t have happened, maybe he wouldn’t even have met you. Why were you different? Why were you ashamed of it? You should have lived in your brain. That worked, didn’t it? You didn’t realize that the portrait of yourself you made with your fingers, the one everyone mistook you for, would have been a better character than the one you were then, crying in a corner, hopeless in pain. Why were you like this? You weren’t even desperate about Victor anymore, you wouldn’t have seen him anymore, no matter if he died or not, you were desperate about yourself, you selfish piece of shit, weren’t you? How could you possibly be more stupid and arrogant? Couldn’t you just stop asking question couldn't you just fucking stop and why why—  
Someone touched his shoulders. It was a junkie, obviously.  
He asked him if he wanted something. _You seem devastated, not thinking for a while could help_. Sherlock rummaged in his pocket. He knew he had enough money. When he said “yes, thank you”, his voice was extraneous, alien, and this time, Sherlock didn’t care.

[ _Dear John,  
_ _I imagine this letter is going to be difficult to believe, but I’m not dead. I can’t reach you right now, but one day I will. I’m writing to make sure that certain things will not happen in your life while I’m away.  
_ _I will make a list. I have a tendency to make lists, as I believe keeping thoughts in order make them easier to digest. I have been proved wrong several times, but if I perseverate in my mistakes it is because I don’t have other choices: I do give up to certain weaknesses in order to gain enough energy to fight the ones that are left. Forgive me if I can’t face them all together.  
_ _Instead of writing useless digressions I do not have time to explore, I should probably start this phantom list, shouldn't I?  
_ _I hope I will find a way to make myself clear.  
_ _—I’m doing this (I have done this, I faked my death), because it’s the only way to save your life, and Mrs. Hudson’s, and my family’s and friend’s (if I do have some apart from you), and mine (but mostly yours). I can’t be alive now.  
_ _—Please, John, do not blame yourself. There’s nothing you could have done better, nothing more you could have dared to try, nothing you can do now. I do not intend for you to feel useless, but better useless than guilty. John, don’t feel guilty.  
_ _—If you are thinking about yourself now, that’s not selfish.  
_ _—I will answer your questions, each and every one of your questions. I can’t do it now, but I will.  
_ _—I had forbidden myself to think about what you are going through. This is a small bracket. In order to survive this, I have to believe you are not suffering nearly as much as I am_ _(or as much as I had, in similar situations)_ _but I can’t overlook anything, not even the smallest chance, if I want to be accurate in my examinations. Therefore, this what you have to know if you are experiencing some sort of depression due to my departure_ _(a list in a list. Oh John, I’m hopeless)_ _:  
_ _—You are a soldier, John, you have saved my life so many times, I cannot dare to believe you can’t save yours.  
_ _—Do not settle down for anything. Choose the best, only the best.  
_ _—If you think I’m “the best”, I disagree.  
_ _—If you still believe it, despite my disagreement, can’t you wait for me? John, please, don’t do what I did, don’t destroy who you are, don’t give up, I will come back for you, if you love me you must know I love you back and I love you I love you so m_ ]

Mycroft found him the next morning. Sherlock couldn’t tell if he felt responsible, but he knew, with clarity, that his brother had no idea how to comfort him, that he didn’t have hope, either for himself or for Sherlock. He looked at him with despair and said: “Next time, Sherlock, write a list.”  
“What list?” he said, and when he heard the sound of his voice, he remembered what happened. He remembered death wishes and noisy destructions and he wanted chemicals to get in his veins again again and please soon.  
“A list of everything you have taken. Next time, write it down. Promise me?”  
Sherlock could have easily said “there won’t be a next time”, but lies? Lies were useless with Mycroft.  
“I promise.”  
“Have you paid them? Did you left debts behind?”  
“It’s all —(a cough in between, proof of the damages he caused)— fine.”  
His brother crouched down in front of him, uncomfortably, and asked: “Can I take you home?”, and it felt so true, for it was such a delicate question, and it betrayed all the love Mycroft felt for him. Sherlock nodded and got home on his brother’s shoulders, crying silently on his shirt, and Mycroft held him tighter at times, and none of them said anything, and none of them ever mentioned it again.

[“I’m sorry.”  
The words echoed in the hospital room. Sherlock was recovering from Mary’s attempted murder, and he didn’t expect Mycroft to visit him.  
“About what?”  
“The person I convinced both of us you would eventually become, that’s not my brother. That will never be my brother.”  
Childhood memories flashed on white walls, unwanted.  
“Who am I, then?”, Sherlock asked, annoyed.  
Mycroft looked at him for a long time and so much was left unsaid.  
“The true story, Sherlock, should be told.”  
“Why?”  
His brother looked down and breathed, deeply.  
“Because you don’t deserve any of this.”  
_Mary does. I do. But you don’t.  
_ Sherlock didn’t believe his words, not just yet, but he said “thank you”, and Mycroft smiled.  
And for that moment, he decided, it was (more than) enough.]

Ever since that day, he didn’t allow himself to have friends. Alone was what he had, alone protected him. He studied. He used drugs when he needed to.  
He had nightmares and cried out loud for hours and got up in the morning pretending nothing had happened. He spent too many years forbidding himself to be nothing but a brain.  
He tried to fool his mental processes, as he was a living reproduction of 1984, and it was so weird to realize he aimed to become a story his heart hated and cried so much for.  
And stories were dangerous indeed, showing him what he could have become, what he had lost.  
He couldn’t think about ending his life as often as he would have probably wanted to, because suicide thoughts led to other memories he did such a great job hiding in his head, and he didn’t want to reach the bottom of it all. His subconsciousness still craved oxygen, despite all his tears.  
But being alive wasn’t easy, it was trying to find an equilibrium with weighted shoulders and closed eyes, while hearing the world moving, spitting up incoherent judgments and biased assumptions, and wanting to shout in its face “you are wrong, you are so wrong” and let it be right all along.  
Little did they know when they call him a faggot and he didn’t reply, when they told him he had not a heart and he said “I agree, only I don’t mean that as an insult”, when everyone used his mind for their own purposes and nobody gave him credit for it, when professors congratulated with him and expressions of revulsion found life in their eyes, little did they know, and little did he do in order to let them know better.  
There was not much to say about those days. It was a repetition of painful patterns, drugs and cases, studies and attempts not to care, and failures and unanswered questions, until one day he sat on a bench in a park, and something happened.  
He got there because of a case, but after gaining the information he needed, he discovered he couldn't get up.  
Two girls settled down on the bench opposite to his, telling unfunny jokes that became hilarious in each other’s voice.  
(Sherlock missed laughing. He hadn’t laughed in such a long time.)  
They were obviously together, and Sherlock thought about the couple that walked past him that distant, foggy day, and he smiled.  
He actually smiled, wholeheartedly, and he kept smiling when one of them (Shirley, she was called, as he overheard in an exchange of words) took the other’s hand, and said “you’re so pretty” —in a small whisper, softly— and she felt awkward and blushed and said “Jesus I don’t even know how to react”, and Shirley replied “you don’t have to” and they were so close and they were about to kiss but didn't because they were in a public park and what if someone saw?  
Shirley’s cell phone rang in that exact moment. She apologized and got up (still blushing, still smiling) to answer the call.  
Sherlock’s legs got him up, too, and he found himself moving without knowing how it happened.  
He didn’t turn left as he was supposed to. He walked in a straight line until he reached the girls’ bench.  
“Send them to hell.”  
The not-Shirley girl looked up in surprise but didn’t felt afraid. She was holding too much happiness for fear anyway, and there was something in Sherlock’s eyes that made her feel safe.  
“Who?”  
“All those ignorants. Kiss the girl and send them to hell.”  
She started laughing and said “thank you”, with a kind of joy that could heal broken hearts.  
“Are you gay?”, she added then, lightly, and Sherlock liked her instantly, for her honesty reminded him of someone.  
“Yes”, he said, so freely, so lightly.  
“Hope you find a handsome boyfriend.”  
Sherlock didn't have time to reply, because Shirley had done talking, and was heading back to her. He just winked, ridiculously, and walked away.

When he got home and tried to sleep, he understood (once again) why he stopped being himself.  
He felt so helplessly alone, the lack of color in his life became so clear in his mind whenever he tried to paint. He buried his face into his pillow, and he knew he couldn’t survive, he wouldn’t want to survive, without letting himself freeto be nice, to be bright, to be anything else other than brilliant and mean. He so made an agreement with all his future-selves: he would try to have friends, to actually save lives instead of solving murders, to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome”, he would try not to pretend at times. Rarely, just so much that it didn’t hurt (kiss the girl and send them to hell was definitely too much), that guilt and self-loathing couldn’t find a big enough fire to burn him alive. But he needed to try.  
And if he’d find out that it was too difficult, too painful, or just generally unbearable, he would end it. He would end it all.  
He knew it was desperate, but it was his last chance, too. There was nothing else left.  
He fell asleep thinking about killing himself, seriously and deeply, and when he got up a sensation of fear and helplessness pervaded in his whole being. He started to live with it until it felt normal.  
That’s how he got to know Lestrade, a few years later, and Mrs. Hudson, and Angelo and Mike and Molly, to keep faith to his promises, and they did help, they actually did warm him a little, but it wasn’t as satisfying as he thought he would be.  
One day a salesgirl in a shop asked him his name, he wouldn’t remember why, and he was so dazed (and high) that day that he stared at her and felt amazed by the idea that he had something his that could define his identity, and then deluded his dreams, when he said “Sherlock” and it didn’t feel true.  
He thought about his fourteen years old self, wondering about a bright future, and repelled the pity he felt.

[They had grown so old.  
Sherlock’s hand trembled against John’s gray hair, and he knew they did not have many years to live.  
It was the anniversary of their meeting.  
God, that day. It felt like it happened in another century. It was so distant, so long buried in the past, and thinking about it was almost dull, because yes, of course it happened, and of course it would happen again, at every age, in every universe, and it would always end in the same way.  
There it was (is), the true story, shared in a breath, hidden in a kiss. They were (are) both so proud of it.  
Should anyone ever dare to think it differently, they wouldn’t get mad. They wouldn’t shout or cry, not anymore. They would hold hands instead and say: “It’s there, we are here. Do not pretend to be blind.”  
_We are always in present tense. We are here, for our love will never perish.  
_ “Did you ever find out?”  
Sherlock is almost falling asleep under the sun, sleepy and rusty.  
“What?”  
“Victor, did you ever find out if he killed himself or not?”  
The pain has gone away. All of it. It is just a memory now.  
Sherlock yawns and smiles. “No. I never asked.”  
“Why?”  
“It didn’t matter anymore. He was there for a while, and I was there with him. That’s all I need to know.”  
John kisses his cheeks with dry lips. “I love you so much.” (as it is still a secret)  
“I know, John, I love you too.” (it isn’t)  
“Can I ask you a question?”  
“You can always ask me questions.”  
“Are you afraid to die?”  
Sherlock holds him closer, and he breathes deeply into his neck. He has done it so many times that he could never finish counting them.  
“I want to be with you for as much time as possible, but no, I don’t think I’m afraid to die. I wouldn't like immortality, and I lived too much to be afraid of death.”  
“Did you like it? Your life I mean. Would you want to change anything?”  
Sherlock is happy. Completely, utterly happy. He parts from John’s chest and looks into his eyes.  
“Of course not, John. I spent it with you.”]

It’s a morning like all the others.  
Sherlock has slept maybe three hours, and feels exhausted. He stares at the mirror and watches his ghost staring back at him. He pretends not to notice and searches for his phone.  
The screen brights up at the touch of his fingers. He looks at the date, feeling sleepy, trying to remember which experiments he is ready to examine today.  
_29th January,_ he reads in his head.  
Good. He has a lot of work to do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> (English is not my first language, I apologize for any grammar mistake I made.)


End file.
